Chapter 25 · The Continent Starts Counting

"She's killing him."

The whisper cut through the hall before I even made it to the medical wing. I didn't stop. My hands were still shaking from the rune shutdown, and I had three soldiers bleeding out two floors down.

"You see the way his chest went dark? That's her mark."

"She's draining the whole damn Keep."

I shoved the door open. The kid on the table wasn't breathing.

Mira looked up from compressions, her face slick with sweat. "Nora, he's gone. I've been at this for four minutes."

"Move."

"Nora—"

"Move."

She stepped back. I put my hands on the kid's chest. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. His ribs felt like bird bones under my palms.

No pulse. No breath. Pupils fixed.

I closed my eyes and reached for the thing I'd been trying not to touch since the rune went quiet. The reset current. The thing that kept pulling me back every time I died.

It lived in my chest now. Hot and sharp and hungry.

I pushed it into him.

The kid's back arced off the table. His mouth opened. No sound came out. His heart kicked once, stuttered, kicked again.

Mira grabbed his wrist.